Sister Elizabeth Ann Linehan lectures on mercy and justice

Chicago – Sister Elizabeth Ann Linehan, R.S.M., kicks off Saint Xavier University’s 2007-08 Catholic Colloquium lecture series with a lecture on mercy and justice at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, at Saint Xavier University’s Chicago campus at 3700 W. 103rd St.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Butler Reception Room, located in the Warde Academic Center. Following the lecture, Linehan will answer questions from the audience.

Titled “Should Mercy Season Justice? A Reflection on Public Policy,” Linehan’s lecture will include discussion of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated gross human rights violations in apartheid South Africa from 1960 to 1994.

A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Linehan is an associate professor and past chair of the philosophy department at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pa., where she teaches moral philosophy courses that focus on medical and criminal justice ethics, as well as courses on violence and nonviolence, and violence and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. She has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University in New York.

Linehan is also an author and has presented numerous papers on moral and social ethics issues, including euthanasia, suicide, abortion and the death penalty. She is a Sister of Mercy of the Baltimore Regional Community and a Saint Xavier University Trustee.

The lecture is one in a four-part series in the 2007-08 academic year that focuses on the roles and responsibilities of a Catholic university to its students, faculty and staff members as well as the local community and broader Catholic Church community. The Catholic Colloquium lecture series explores the implications of current theological thinking about contemporary moral issues that have arisen since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

“We are delighted to host four eminent and nationally renowned scholars in this year’s Catholic Colloquium series. We know they will help us examine the important role Catholic universities can and do play in the spiritual formation of our community,” said Sister Susan Sanders, R.S.M., vice president for University Mission and Heritage at Saint Xavier. Sanders and Michael O’Keeffe, Ph.D., associate professor of religious studies at Saint Xavier, organized the Catholic Colloquium series.

The series is sponsored by the Office for University Mission and Heritage. For more information about the lecture series, please contact Kathy Mareska at (773) 298-3981 or mareska@sxu.edu, or visit http://www.sxu.edu/.

Media: Contact Deborah Snow Humiston773-298-3325 or snowhumiston@sxu.edu
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